He got up then, went to a small
looking-glass hanging on the wall, and stared at himself steadily. It
was not a new-born vanity which induced this long survey. He felt
so strange that he could not resist the suspicion of his personal
appearance having changed during the night. What he saw in the glass,
however, was the man he knew before. It was almost a disappointment--a
belittling of his recent experience. And then he smiled at his
naiveness; for, being over five and thirty years of age, he ought to
have known that in most cases the body is the unalterable mask of the
soul, which even death itself changes but little, till it is put out of
sight where no changes matter any more, either to our friends or to our
enemies.
Heyst was not conscious of either friends or of enemies. It was the very
essence of his life to be a solitary achievement, accomplished not by
hermit-like withdrawal with its silence and immobility, but by a system
of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller
amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived the means of
passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care
in the world--invulnerable because elusive.
CHAPTER THREE
For fifteen years Heyst had wandered, invariably courteous and
unapproachable, and in return was generally considered a "queer chap.
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